In order to fully utilize the single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) processor, gather instructions are used to read a set of (possibly) non-contiguous source data elements from memory and pack them together, typically into a single register. Scatter instructions do the reverse. In some instances, the data elements in memory are known to be contiguous to each other. Unfortunately, conventional gather and scatter instructions do not leverage off this known information, thus reducing the efficiency of the SIMD processor.